The term is often used to refer to textiles featuring a fractal pattern or design. It does not imply that the textiles were created using a fractal algorithm. For fractal textiles arising from a fractal crafting process see: fractal craft.

Many ancient patterns show elements of fractality.
Due to the perceptional appeal of self-similarity, fractal patterns of low complexity may have survived in the evolution of decorative design, even when recreated in a completely non-fractal manner.

Like any other medium, textiles can be used to represent fractal images.
When pictures of the Mandelbrot Set became popular in the 1980s, there were quite a lot of articles in home crafting magazines covering fractal crafts.

Usually cross stitch or quilting techniques were used as textile display for fractal imagery. The fractals were already generated inside the computer, and then sequentially transferred to the textile medium by the home crafters. Often the computer images served as inspiration, very much like the meandering of rivers may have served as inspiration for frieze patterns in the past.
But the process of crafting itsself remained inherently non-fractal.